Saturday, May 17, 2008

Almonzo day

I had a really lousy day - so far.

Drive to Rochester Thursday evening, sit parked in traffic for 30 minutes outside Coates on Highway 52 due to a very nasty auto accident - I don't mind waiting, it just sucks these things happen. Arrive in Rochester, takes a while to find the first house, doesn't look great, go to 2nd house but stop to eat first, my car dies coming off the ramp. No start. Shit. Probably a dead fuel pump. It's 10:30pm. We eat at Applebee's and eat super crappy frozen dinner food while being wildly entertained by the various conversations of other clientele. Come back to the car, still no start. Since I have to catch an international flight for work on Sat evening (yeah, I was pushing it without having a broken car,) I decide that I need to get the car fixed and get my ass back to Mpls to make sure and catch the flight - my boss said if I missed the flight due to the race that I'd better be dead. I see the fellow racers off on Sat morning and am a bit pissed I am not one of them and at the same time am 2nd guessing why I drove a car 1.5 hours to ride my bike for 8, but let's not get into that right now.

I get a ride to my car. Call a garage - they're open. Call a tow truck, he comes 20 minutes later. I sit at the garage for an hour before they tell me the news, and it doesn't get much worse - broken timing belt, have to take most of the engine apart, possibly replace the valves. I sit for 30 minutes on the curb weighing my options. There is a car rental place next door. I tell the guy to do it, go get a compact car, throw my shit into said car and kick it to north to Mpls. The car will be ready next week sometime. The car will be going on Craigslist in the next 90 days.

Anybody want to drive me down to Rochester next Saturday morning?

Photos possible in the next few days, but there are no guarantees in life.